Wednesday, February 03, 2021

Gold-tongued mummies, but no Cleopatra

ARCHAEOLOGY: Mummy with a gold tongue found in Egypt. Could they speak to the gods? (Owen Jarus, Live Science).
Archaeologists have found a 2,000-year-old mummy with a gold tongue at an ancient Egyptian site called Taposiris Magna.

Embalmers perhaps placed the golden tongue on the mummy to ensure that the deceased would be able to speak in the afterlife, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said in a statement released Jan 29.

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Most of the articles on this story, like this one, refer to a single gold-tongued mummy. But a couple published in the last day (by the BBC and the Telegraph) mention multiple mummies. Perhaps they have more recent information. I don't know.

The site of Taposiris Magna was in the news last summer, with reports that it was being excavated as the possible site of Cleopatra's tomb. The current articles mention a hoard of Cleopatra coins found at the site, but nothing about looking for her there. Perhaps the excavators have decided she wasn't buried there after all. Again, I don't know.

Cleopatra VII, the famous Cleopatra, has been in the news lately. She has been of interest to PaleoJudaica for a long time. For posts on her, start here and follow the links.

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